


Constellations

by Devany



Category: Night In The Woods (Video Game)
Genre: Canon Divergence, Childhood Trauma, Coming of Age, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Pre-Canon, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-18
Updated: 2017-10-18
Packaged: 2019-01-18 19:00:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,970
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12394206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Devany/pseuds/Devany
Summary: "He’s never quite found God, Angus thinks, floating further and further away from himself, but maybe, just maybe, he’s found something better."





	Constellations

**Author's Note:**

> So! This is my first foray into writing for "Night in the Woods", but after finishing this BEAUTIFUL game just last week, I couldn't NOT contribute something to the fandom. Because I related the most to Angus (for better or for worse), consider this his story. This is my take on what pre-canon life might've been like for him, and explores his relationships with other characters, most notably Gregg. Some points are definitely canon-divergent to fit the story I wanted to tell - for example, Angus's abuse continues into teenagehood, since, in my universe, his father did not leave 10 years ago. The tenses might also be a little funny, because the story takes place in present time but delves pretty extensively into events that have already happened. Hopefully it doesn't make things TOO confusing! Last but not least, whether or not "Night in the Woods" could begin at the end of this story is entirely up to interpretation - don't let me tell you what to think!
> 
> Enjoy!

**Constellations**

* * *

In the days before his brother left, when his mother and father still loved him, Angus’s happiest memories lay nestled near the peak of Possum Jump.

They’d drive up in the afternoons, while his father was away working at the glass factory, and find the perfect grassy hill for a game of frisbee.

Later, when the sun’s rays began to disappear into the horizon, the three of them would stare up at the sky from that same grassy hill, drawing invisible lines between the dusk stars.

His mother knew them all – Simone the Fighter, Sterling the Seer, Dohr the Murderer – and though he could never quite remember their names in the years that followed, he would never forget the sound of her voice lulling him to sleep with those beautiful, made-up stories.

Once, before things changed, Angus asked for a book of constellations, hoping to bring a little of that Possum Jump magic home with him.

His father made his disdain for Angus’s stars abundantly clear, thinking it a useless, frivolous hobby, but his mother relented and found a second-hand guide, stripped of its cover and earmarked throughout, during one of her trips to the Possum Springs flea market.

She promised Angus that they’d take it with them the next time they visited the Jump, and that they could spend as long as he wanted searching the sky for patterns and pictures.

They never did.

* * *

School is all Angus Delaney has.

It seems like a dramatic statement, even as he silently repeats the mantra to himself - paws folded neatly on top of the rickety old desk in front of him, too small and too fragile for his oversized build - but it's absolutely true.

_School is all I have._

Possum Springs is not exactly the bustling epicenter of, well, _anything_. It’s a sleepy, stagnant town, devoid of even its primary industry since the permanent closing of the copper mines back in the ‘80s, and even then Angus isn’t sure there was much of a future in working in the dark, avoiding open pits and inhaling polluted air 12 hours a day.

Towne Centre doesn’t offer much in the way of opportunity, either. Sure, the Food Donkey near the outskirts of town seems to be perpetually accepting applications for the really crappy part-time shifts, but Angus has a sneaking suspicion that it’s all for show since he's thrown his hat into the ring plenty of times and has never once gotten a call back.

School, though… it’s not exactly intellectually stimulating - Possum Springs is drastically underfunded and its teachers spend more time reprimanding juvenile delinquents and teaching to the test than nurturing a love of learning - but, someday, school _could_ equal freedom.

Doing well in most of his classes, upkeeping decent grades, evading the truant officer on the days he can't make it to school... all of those things could equal freedom for Angus in the form of a college acceptance letter.

He’s dreamed about it before – or was that another one of his hunger-induced hallucinations? – about the day when he’d check the mailbox on his way home from school and find a manila envelope filled to the brim with college acceptance paperwork: a congratulatory letter lined in gold trim, campus maps outlining his new home, information on dormitory assignments and meal plans and all kinds of wonderfully mundane subjects.

It wouldn't even matter if he got into a good college, not really, because anything _out there_ has to be better than literally everything _in here_. Possum Springs is a cage, marked on one side by the chain-link fence towering over the outskirts and on the other by the dinky old “Welcome to Historic Possum Springs!” sign still miraculously standing at the entrance of the town. The only people who get out are the ones who have somewhere – _anywhere_ – to go.

Right now, Angus doesn’t have that. If he plays his cards right, though, someday… someday he might.

…which is precisely why he's trying his damndest to pay attention to what his History teacher is lecturing the class about today, staring stoically forward, repeating the mantra – _School is all I have_ – over and over again to himself, desperately doing his best to ignore the pencil he can feel lodging itself repeatedly into his ribcage.

Someone is trying to get his attention – not just _any_ someone, but _the_ someone – and Angus knows that he can’t afford to chance a glance in any direction but forward, because his resolve is already starting to waver. One look into _those_ dark eyes, always electric, always sparking with barely-contained energy, and Angus is afraid he’ll give in again.

* * *

It’s been a few months since it started, come to think of it, a few months since Angus first found himself being singled out by the boy with the black leather jacket and the golden fur who never really bothered to show up to History unless the spirit moved him. (It hadn’t escaped Angus’s notice that, when he did, he’d always sit with his rockabilly boots kicked up onto a desk suspiciously devoid of books, twirling a pencil around in his paw like he wished that someday it might mutate into something sharp and dangerous, an imaginary pocketknife).

His name was Greggory Lee, Angus eventually learned, though they’d never really crossed paths until a chance encounter later on in the year.

Angus didn’t have many friends aside from Beatrice Santello, whom he’d met at the end of middle school, and it was Beatrice who’d been walking him home that day when the clatter of cans drew them curiously to the Food Donkey parking lot. There, obscured by the signpost advertising the grocery store’s front entrance, he and Beatrice silently watched as three figures, practically silhouettes in the fading light of early winter, hopped and danced around each other, an old wooden bat passing between two of them as the third tossed crushed aluminum cans high into the air.

The bat connected with the cans, each and every time, a sickeningly satisfying _crunch_ that made Angus twitch involuntarily, and laughter filled that small corner of Possum Springs as battered aluminum sailed across the mostly-empty lot, glinting like strange, alien stars when the light hit them just right. Despite knowing that this kind of behavior was childish, and briefly wondering whether or not Officer Molly would come barreling through without warning, Angus found himself wishing that he could have a turn, too. He imagined himself, cool and confident, casually strolling up to those three kids and asking for a chance up at bat, so that, for once in his miserable life, he could feel what it might be like to put even just a small dent into _something_ in this godforsaken town.

But Angus was not cool, or confident, or any combination thereof, so he settled for watching with Beatrice at his side, silent voyeurs of a carefreeness neither of them possessed. He was just about to tell her as much, that they shouldn’t be sticking their noses in where they might not be wanted, when a particularly loud _crack_ caught his attention. Angus looked up, adjusting his glasses out of habit, and watched as this can sailed higher than all the rest, reminding him distinctly of a UFO even though Angus hadn’t believe in those in years. It skidded across the pavement and came to rest squarely at his feet.

He stared at it for a moment, making out the faded label of whatever cheap, fizzy drink had once filled it, then looked up slowly to find that the kids on the other side of the parking lot had grown still. Beside him, Beatrice let out a small huff of air – something that may have sounded like _mayday_ , although Angus wasn’t sure why because they weren’t in any kind of trouble, were they? But then Beatrice wasn’t there, and neither were two of the delinquent kids - felines, both of them - because there was a boy staring directly at him, fangs glistening in the low light as he smiled at him – smiled at _Angus_ – and raised a paw in friendly greeting.

Suddenly, Angus couldn’t breathe. Suddenly, Angus was sure that he was back at home, crammed in between a locked door and a shelf of expired canned goods, daydreaming of a scenario where a boy with golden fur and a leather jacket was smiling at _him_ , like somehow he was actually someone worth being smiled at.

With his heart in his throat and embarrassment hot on his face, Angus had done the only thing he could think of: he fled. It wasn’t even particularly _good_ fleeing, either – he turned too quickly on his heel, almost knocking Beatrice over in his haste, and as she hissed and rubbed her shoulder, asking what his problem was, Angus somehow managed to trip on the crushed can, glasses flying askew and straight off of his face.

“Ugh,” Beatrice groaned beside him, bending at the waist to help him feel around for his glasses in the dark, until they were interrupted by the sound of footsteps pounding across the pavement towards them.

“Hey!” a voice called, nearer now, and panic flared in the pit of Angus’s stomach. He rose swiftly, once again only narrowly missing throwing Beatrice off-balance, and hurriedly began to move in the opposite direction.

“Angus!”

Beatrice’s voice was a mixture of annoyance and concern, and a moment later his friend was jogging to keep up with him, throwing him a look that clearly asked, “ _Are you out of your mind?”_

“Angus!” she repeated, and Angus felt himself beginning to slow already, lungs tight in his chest, the familiar burn of _not being able to breathe_ finally getting the best of him.

“Sorry,” he’d all but wheezed, and Beatrice’s face softened as she sighed and fell into step beside him, glancing briefly over her shoulder before informing him, “They’re gone. Probably scared you were gonna combust or something.”

The heat returned to Angus’s face, and Beatrice must’ve noticed because she reached out hesitantly and gave his arm a light pat. “Dude. It’s cool. I know being confronted like that is really hard for you. But, hey. I think they were only trying to say hi?”

Angus sighed, feeling ashamed and inept all at once, and reached up with a shaky paw to rub at his face. It only took a moment for the creeping realization to hit him.

Shit. His glasses.

“Do you want to go back?” Beatrice asked, ever the pragmatist, though Angus secretly wondered if maybe she wasn’t a little bit psychic, “Like, maybe those kids with the bat got bored or something and you don’t even have to talk to them if you don’t want to.”

“It’s fine,” Angus found himself saying, “Extra pair at home should be good enough. I’m running late anyway.”

They’d walked the rest of the way in relative silence, Beatrice kicking up small, loose bits of earth as they moved along, and eventually Angus found himself alone again, watching his only friend enter the warm, inviting light of her family’s home and nervously wondering if tonight would be one of _those_ nights.

Later, when Angus had been adequately punished for losing his glasses, he’d found himself closing his blurry eyes and imagining tiny, silver UFOs flying across his lids, golden fur rustling in the imaginary wind at the periphery of his vision.

* * *

Angus never did find that extra pair of glasses he’d sworn he’d had – maybe they’d been misplaced, maybe his mother had thrown them into his father’s face during another one of their explosive arguments – and between the fact that he couldn’t see very well and his limbs were still silently suffering from yesterday's punishment, he’d already managed to convince himself that this particular day was going to royally suck.

He was right, for the most part – all of his classes were brain-numbingly boring, a few kids snickered in the back row about how puffy and tired his eyes looked – “Dude, no wonder he hides behind those big-ass glasses all the time” – and, in general, Angus wanted nothing more than for the earth to open up and swallow him whole.

By 5th period, Angus was seriously considering faking a stomachache, throwing himself down a flight of stairs, dropping out of school entirely - _anything_ to end the painful monotony of the day. What he  _wasn't_ expecting was for the universe to give him an out, right at the threshold of Mr. Oakley’s History class.

“Hey.”

* * *

Angus doesn’t believe in fate.

Fate is the kind of thing that other people put stock into because they’re convinced that the universe has more in store for them than it actually does; few people can bear the thought of leading a meaningless existence.

What Angus has always known, however, is that the universe _doesn’t_ actually care, and that the likelihood of there being some greater design that all living things are a part of is so low it might as well all be a fairy tale.

But Angus _does_ believe in small pockets of time that defy logic because they’re so sudden and unexpected and so horribly, wonderfully _right_.

Meeting Gregg again in the fluorescent light of day, outside of that dimly-lit parking lot littered in aluminum cans and punctuated with the laughter of kids Angus could only ever dare to watch from afar, was kind of like that.

Horribly, wonderfully _right._

* * *

“Hey.”

It was with a belated sort of panic that Angus realized he’d spoken, a single syllable treacherously escaping his mouth before he could reach out and grab it, wishing he could wrestle it back into himself, back down his inexplicably dry throat. The awkwardness that ensued was almost epic in the way it made two barely-acquainted boys hover in the spaces outside and inside of the classroom, nothing but an open door between them.

“So.”

It was the boy with the golden fur who spoke next, a lopsided grin pulling his lips back over his teeth, exposing the sharp, tiny bits that hid inside his mouth. “How’s it hangin’?”

 _Maybe_ , Angus had found himself thinking, trying to make sense of the dread and panic and _excitement_ buzzing through his body, caffeine-rush and a sudden sick feeling in his stomach even though he hadn’t had anything to eat or drink all day, _Maybe he’s a vampire._

Vampires had shiny teeth, didn’t they? Vampires were all cool and mysterious and came up to you out of nowhere, didn’t they?

 _Vampires aren’t real,_ Angus chastised himself; then, out loud, “It’s… hanging, I guess.”

“Cool.”

Well, this was certainly interesting. When he’d seen him yesterday, swinging a bat over his head with practiced ease and laughing like the world and everything in it was some big inside joke, Angus hadn’t figured the boy from the Food Donkey parking lot to be anything but loud and brash and electric. And who knew, maybe he _was_ all of those things, but at that moment he seemed a little hesitant, a little unsure, and _a lot_ worried. His brow was furrowed, almost like someone trying to remember the script to a play they’d never actually managed to memorize, and Angus thought that it was actually kind of... cute.

_Uh-oh._

Angus cleared his throat, distinctly aware that there were huffy, annoyed students trying to squeeze past them and into the room before the bell rang, and in spite of himself he found that he was gesturing to his own desk, in the front row of the classroom and just beyond the doorframe. “I sit over there,” he said simply, “We could, uh, talk or something before Mr. Oakley gets in?”

“Nah,” the boy replied, a little too quickly for Angus’s taste, and he was already on his way to feeling disappointed when the world’s most mischievous smile was flashed full-force at him, leaving him momentarily blinded – or was that the lack of glasses?

“How ‘bout I meet you in the bathroom instead, big guy?”

* * *

Angus wasn’t quite sure what was happening.

One minute he’d been propositioned – was that even the right word for it? – by the most striking mammal he’d ever laid eyes on – God, he was so _gay_ – and the next he was sweating it out behind his desk, wondering what it all meant, if the boy with the leather jacket had been jerking him around or if he _actually_ wanted something to do with him – _him,_ of all people!

But the proof was kind of in the pudding – the boy had slinked off right before the bell rang, paws coolly shoved into his pockets, sauntering down the hall in a direction that Angus knew very well, and belatedly he wondered if the reason he’d never noticed him before was because he was constantly skipping class or something.

Still, he’d never done anything like this before – never really had a reason to consider leaving right in the middle of History to do something non-school related – and in spite of his inhibitions, Angus found that he was also really, really curious to see what would come of this.

Convinced that he was being about as transparent as the flimsy old hall pass he was about to ask for, Angus slowly raised his hand – the rickety desk chair creaked beneath him unexpectedly and Angus felt the entire classroom’s eyes on him  – and, before he could lose his nerve, finally asked, “May I please go to the restroom?”

* * *

The walk to the bathroom was relatively short, and even though Mr. Oakley hadn’t seemed alarmed by his request in any way, Angus still found himself gripping the hall pass with clammy paws, second-guessing himself every step of the way.

Was he about to walk into the world’s biggest, meanest “gotcha!”? Had the school delinquents somehow discovered that, among his many, well-kept secrets, Angus was not exactly interested in girls? Would he be surrounded the moment he walked through the door with the peeling ‘Boys’ sticker on the front, shoved into one of the stalls he avoided like plague, swirlied until he couldn’t breathe and needed his asthma meds for real?

The thought that all of this could be possible, that he might very well be walking into a trap, almost made Angus lose his nerve again. He stopped briefly, one paw hovering over the door handle – then, reminding himself that he’d been through much, much worse than anything a couple of high school boys could ever do to him, Angus pushed open the door.

A wave of relief washed over him as he peeked through the doorway and found exactly what he’d hoped he’d see – the boy with the golden fur and black leather jacket, cool as a cucumber, propped up between the far window and the old radiator, the one that literally hadn’t functioned in years, squeezed up against the back wall.

“Hey.”

Was this their standard greeting now? It seemed safe enough, as far as greetings went.

“Hi,” Angus tried instead, just for a change, and he steadied the door behind himself until it shut with a soft, unassuming click, “Sorry if I’m, uh, late.”

“Nah,” the boy shrugged; then, hopping down off of his makeshift perch in one fluid motion, “What’s your name, dude?”

“Angus,” he found himself supplying almost automatically, inhibitions a little lower now that there were no awkward silences or potential delinquent bullies lurking anywhere between them.

“Angus, huh? Cool, cool. I’m Gregg.”

“Uh. Nice to meet you?”

Goddamit, why did everything out of Angus’s mouth sound like a question all of a sudden?

“Yeah,” Gregg replied, and maybe things were starting to get _a little_ awkward again, but thankfully the shorter boy seemed pretty good at sidestepping right past that and into the real meat and potatoes of their encounter, “So, listen. Didn’t mean to scare you off yesterday or anything. My friend, she carries that bat around everywhere, but like, she’d never actually _hit_ anyone…”

“Killer?” Angus asked before he could stop himself, and something strange flickered across Gregg’s face, something Angus felt very, very guilty for putting there, “Sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”

“It’s cool,” Gregg smoothed over, but the _thing_ that had entered his expression a moment ago was still there, almost as if he was sizing up whether or not Angus could be trusted, “That happened, like, years ago. So you weren’t in any danger or anything.”

“I wasn’t scared,” Angus replied quickly, and Gregg smiled at him, seemingly out of nowhere, relief evident in the pull of his lips.

“Good to know. She’s, uh. She’s good.”

Angus nodded, not having expected their bathroom meeting to revolve around Mae “Killer” Borowski – he’d never really spoken to her, although Beatrice always seemed a little too nonchalant whenever someone mentioned her name, but of course _everyone_ knew who she was. In a town as simultaneously small and loud as Possum Springs, the girl who beat a boy bloody on a softball field _would_ become some sort of local legend.

“It sucks,” Angus found himself saying, and Gregg eyed him curiously until he finished, “That people around here only seem to remember the awful shit you do.”

“Huh,” Gregg mused, “You know, it does suck. Like, you could shoplift a whole cart of food to give to the homeless dudes out by the tracks, and all people would say is, ‘Eff that guy who’s always stealing our shit’.”

“Have you?” Angus asked, curious beyond all measure, “Shoplifted a whole cart full of stuff?”

Gregg laughed then, and it was so similar to the laugh Angus had heard yesterday, when Gregg had been busy smashing cans with a baseball bat and dancing circles around his friends, that for a moment his mind transported him back to that place, empty parking lot, dim lights, and the magic of watching someone do something you could never dream of doing yourself.

“Maybe,” came the cryptic response, waggling eyebrows and all, “Maybe not. Trade secret, dude.”

Angus thought that for a delinquent or whatever he was, Gregg was actually a really good conversationalist, funny and witty and even kind of mysterious, and it occurred to him that he’d never really spoken at length to anyone besides Beatrice, at least not since he’d entered high school. Uncomfortably aware of the fact that he still had no idea _where_ this conversation was going, Angus cleared his throat and decided on a more straightforward approach.

“So is there anything I can do for you, or…?”

“Do for me?” Gregg blinked, a little confused, maybe even a little flustered, before laughing himself out of whatever thought he’d been entertaining, “Oh. Nah, man. I just have something for you.”

 _Like a gift?_ Angus wanted to ask, but before he could, Gregg was reaching into one of the pockets of his leather jacket, where he gingerly removed something Angus wasn’t sure he’d ever see again.

“My glasses,” he breathed in surprise, and Gregg smiled sheepishly at him before nudging the frame into Angus’s outstretched paw.

“Sorry you dropped ‘em,” Gregg apologized, “I kinda, you know, stepped on ‘em? In the dark?”

Gregg winced at the admission, but quickly pointed out the thin layer of duct tape wrapped around the bridge, right where Angus’s nose would come to rest, “But look! I fixed ‘em right up for you! They’re, like, brand effing new now!”

Angus tried to laugh, because Gregg really _was_ funny, and holy shit, this was the nicest thing anyone had ever done for him, even if they _were_ the reason for the damage in the first place – but it came out a little too soft and a little too strangled, almost like a sob stuck in his throat.

“Hey.”

Gregg’s voice was quieter now, tinged with something that sounded like concern, and Angus was surprised to find that the other boy didn’t hesitate to close the space between them, just a bit, resting a paw on Angus’s much larger forearm, “You okay, dude?”

“Yeah,” Angus replied, once he was sure his voice wouldn’t betray him again, “Just missed them, I guess. It’s been a really long day.”

“Tell me about it,” Gregg commiserated, and Angus wasn’t sure if he was changing the subject on purpose, but he was grateful not to have to explain why he’d suddenly found himself on the verge of tears, “I just woke up, like, two hours ago, and I’m already exhausted, man.”

“Two hours ago?” Angus wondered, taking a moment to shine the dull lenses of his rescued glasses on the sleeve of his shirt, “It’s the middle of the afternoon.”

“Yeah,” Gregg yawned, then smiled coolly at him, “Going to class is kinda for dorks, you know. I take naps on the roof and only come down for special occasions.”

“So I’m a special occasion?”

Gregg’s eyebrows shot up in surprise, almost as if he’d been caught saying something he hadn’t meant to say, and Angus felt guilty again, quickly correcting himself, “Sorry. I, uh, didn’t mean it that way.”

“Dude,” Gregg cut in, another dazzling smile playing on his lips, and Angus quickly shielded his eyes with his duct-taped glasses, “This is _totally_ a special occasion. Like, here I am, hanging out with a non-dick in the boys’ bathroom, talking and shit. I don’t really talk to a lot of other guys, I guess?”

There seemed to be something else that Gregg wanted to convey to him – something like electricity crackled at the corners of his eyes, lighting him up on the inside – but instead the shorter boy settled for a mild shrug and finished off his thought simply, “It’s not every day I make a new friend.”

“Are we? Friends?” Angus found himself asking, and Gregg seemed confused, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“Well, _yeah_ ,” he responded matter-of-factly, then went on to add, “Yesterday, at the Food Donkey, I totally wanted to say hi to you. I saw you and that girl you were with watching us from across the parking lot. You looked…”

Gregg trailed off and Angus’s mind unhelpfully supplied, _Creepy? Pathetic? Totally not worth your time?_

“Sad,” Gregg finished, eyes flickering up to briefly meet Angus’s, blessedly hidden behind his glasses, “I know you were there with someone, but, like… you looked like you were really lonely.”

Angus’s heart sank directly to his knees. Had he really been that obvious, wistfully watching from behind the safety of the signpost, wishing he could be as cool and carefree and _happy_ as Gregg and his friends had seemed to be?

“…so is she your girlfriend?”

The question caught him so far off-guard that Angus found himself sputtering a little as he readjusted his glasses onto the bridge of his nose, “What?”

“That girl. That you were with.”

Gregg looked almost… nervous? Disappointed? Angus didn’t know him well enough to know _what_ he was thinking.

“No,” he replied, as though it were the most ridiculous notion anyone could come up with, “No way. Bea is my best friend.”

The implication went unspoken between them: _She’s my_ only _friend._

“Oh.” Gregg paused for a moment, lifted a paw to his face and scratched absently at his furry cheek, “Cool, cool.”

A brief silence stretched between them, punctuated by the slow, melodic _drip-drip_ of an old broken faucet; then, as if a switch had been flicked, Gregg’s neutral expression grew mischievous again, electricity sparking in his eyes as he casually announced, “Welp. Gonna go do some _crimes_ now. Better get back to class before teach starts to miss ya, big guy.”

 _Crimes_ , Angus thought to himself, suddenly very, very aware that he and Gregg were from two distinct worlds, connected by some vague, unplanned meeting in a parking lot at dusk and now this strange, oddly pleasant conversation smack dab in the middle of the boys’ bathroom during 5th period.

“Okay,” he replied, for lack of anything significant to say; then, hoping that his voice wouldn’t betray how much he was already looking forward to their next meeting, “Do you wanna… maybe… talk some more? Like, tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow,” Gregg echoed, and if Angus had believed that Gregg’s smile couldn’t grow any wider or brighter, he was dead wrong, “Same time, same place?”

* * *

Somehow, in spite of Angus’s bewilderment at anyone at all wanting to voluntarily spend time with him, hanging with Gregg in the boys’ bathroom became kind of a _thing._

Every other day or so, halfway through Mr. Oakley’s History class, Angus would awkwardly raise his hand and ask for permission to use the restroom.

Mr. Oakley must’ve caught on, because somewhere in the span of the last few weeks each request was met with raised eyebrows and a searching look that clearly said, _I know you’re up to something._

Still, Angus’s grades were good and his work hadn’t suffered significantly, so Mr. Oakley gave him the hall pass each time and allowed him to escape the confines of the classroom and enter the newfound familiarity of Gregg’s domain.

Sometimes, while they were talking, with Gregg propped up on that crappy old radiator and Angus awkwardly leaning against the sink closest to the wall, someone would come in to do their business or spray-paint a new expletive onto one of the stall doors.

It must’ve been weird, Angus thought to himself at one point, to see a boy in a cool leather jacket conversing with some loser in a fedora and sweater-vest, but clearly Gregg had a reputation because no one ever bothered to comment on it.

Gregg, for the most part, didn’t really seem to care that he might get caught hanging out with someone _so_ less-cool than he was. He even did most of the talking, though that could’ve been because he had so much more to talk about in the first place.

Mae Borowski was the subject of many a conversation, since it was totally obvious that Gregg thought she was the best thing about Possum Springs, if not the world, and sometimes it made Angus a little jealous, even if he wasn’t sure why. Gregg talked about other things, too – about Casey Hartley, who apparently was a bro among bros, about the “band”, which currently consisted of the three of them banging away at random instruments in Casey’s basement while the neighbors threatened to call the police, about “crimes”, which Angus learned could refer to anything from shoplifting to dumpster-diving after-hours at the transfer station near the outskirts of town.

Gregg led the most exciting life of anyone he’d ever met, Angus decided one day after the other boy had finished telling him a pulse-pounding story about how he and Mae and Casey had managed to outrun the cops by leaping off of a log that was “literally thisclose” to breaking.

“So…”

Angus blinked up at Gregg, fully intending to hear more about his insane adventures in Possum Springs, but instead being met by a curious, almost expectant look.

It made him deeply uncomfortable.

Nervously, he’d fiddled with the fraying sleeve of his dark green sweater and cleared his throat, voice hesitant as he echoed, “So…”

“So tell me more about yourself,” Gregg encouraged, twirling his prized pocketknife around in his paw as though it _didn’t_ have the capacity to slice his palm open with one wrong move, “I know, like, close to zilch about you, big guy.”

“I don’t know,” Angus blurted almost automatically, and it made Gregg laugh, the kind of laugh that Angus secretly wished he could bottle up just so he could carry it with him and hear it again in the dark spaces between food he’d never get to eat and a locked door he’d never be able to open by himself.

“Whaddya mean, you don’t know?” Gregg asked, amusement clear in his tone, “You’re, like, _you_ , right? Who could possibly know you better?”

“Maybe Bea,” Angus found himself saying, because _anything_ seemed more appropriate than having to divulge information about himself, and he was surprised to find that Gregg’s expression shifted almost imperceptibly, veiled annoyance clear in his tone.

“Bea, huh? You sure she’s not your girlfriend or something?”

 _This again?_ Angus was genuinely confused as to why Gregg kept bringing it up, because really, he and Beatrice were _not_ compatible in that way, for reasons mostly relating to Angus’s lack of attraction to girls.

Well, Gregg wanted to know _something_ about Angus, and it sure beat having to admit that he hadn’t been fed in almost sixteen hours now.

“Gregg, I’m gay.”

The silence that ensued was so thick that Angus could’ve sliced it with a knife – Gregg’s pocketknife, to be exact – and it dawned on Angus that maybe he’d made a fatal mistake, that maybe Gregg had been looking for something a little less intimate and _weird_ , and goddamn his shitty social skills because now he was going to lose the _one_ friend he’d managed to make in literal years -

“You’re… what?”

Gregg didn’t seem disgusted or angry, at least, but he did look like he’d just seen a ghost, eyes boring into Angus’s face like he wasn’t sure if he was _really_ real.

Angus didn’t think he could stay there a moment longer.

Swiftly, or as swiftly as he could manage for being as large and uncoordinated as he was, Angus moved from his spot at the bathroom sink and turned wordlessly in the direction of the door. With a little luck, maybe he’d be able to make a clean break without having to make an awkward situation even worse.

Gregg was apparently a big fan of awkward situations, though, because instead of just letting Angus escape with whatever was left of his dignity, he half-jumped, half-flailed off of his perch and skidded to a stop in the space between Angus and the bathroom door.

“Sorry, that was shitty of me,” he apologized breathlessly; then, carefully, as though Angus were some sort of small creature he didn’t want to startle away, “You ever tell anyone else?”

“Just Bea,” Angus responded, shame hot on his face, “Though I guess she kind of always knew, heh.”

“Oh.”

Silence, then, “Thanks for telling me, man. That took a lot of guts.”

“Y-yeah,” Angus found himself saying, feeling relieved and sick all at once, “That’s… not what you were expecting, was it?”

“No,” Gregg admitted, then, gracing Angus with the full force of his smile, “But I happen to like guts. And yours are pretty big.”

It only took a moment for the two of them to erupt in laughter.

* * *

Angus feels it again, startled abruptly from his thoughts; the dull, annoying ache of Gregg’s pencil eraser poking him right in the center of a bruise blooming above his ribcage is difficult to ignore. Still, he’s been spending a lot of time with Gregg lately – _so_ much time with Gregg, though their meetings are still confined to the four walls of the school – and Angus is afraid that he’s going to fall behind one of these days, miss too much of a lecture or too many pages of notes while he’s off effectively skipping class.

One good thing has come of all of this, at least: he’s managed to drag Gregg out of the boys’ bathroom and into the History class he’s been missing almost all year long over the course of the last few weeks.

Gregg hates it, predictably, though he seems a lot more compliant now that the student who used to sit next to Angus graciously surrendered their desk to him. Angus wonders off-handedly if Gregg maybe said or did something to scare him off, but he doesn’t think it’s a very good idea to ask, and besides, Gregg would probably just smile at him and shrug it off anyway.

The bell rings.

 _Thank God_ , Angus thinks to himself, then shakes his head because God clearly has better things to do than end his suffering. He's gathering his notes and textbooks as neatly as possible when a fuzzy golden paw drops right down onto his desk, halting his progress.

Angus sighs and glances up, a tired smile pulling at the corners of his mouth as he finally meets his friend’s eyes.

“Hi, Gregg.”

“ _Hi_ , he says,” Gregg responds dramatically, practically pouting at him, “You know I’ve been trying to get your attention _all day long_ , right?”

“It’s been 45 minutes,” Angus chides him, gently swatting his paw away so that he can finish clearing his desk, “That’s, like, a speck in the cosmic scheme of things.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Gregg waves him off, too ever-present to really give a shit about the universe and all its infinite possibilities. He goes quiet for a minute, glances surreptitiously around to make sure that no one is listening, and then blurts out suddenly, “Do something with me.”

Angus blinks. “We _are_ doing something. We’re talking.”

Gregg gives him a _look_. “Do something _else_ with me.”

Angus isn’t sure where this is going, though knowing Gregg, it’s probably headed in the direction of _crimes_ and Angus isn’t sure he can get mixed up in that nonsense what with college potentially looming just on the horizon.

“What do you want, Gregg?” he asks point-blank, and Gregg’s got him in the cross-hairs now, all smiles and big puppy-dog eyes.

“I wanna hang with you,” he says matter-of-factly, “Not here, though. Outside.”

 _Outside_ means skipping school, and Angus _knows_ he can’t do that.

“Gregg…” he starts hesitantly, but Gregg is relentless, a whirlwind of _pleasepleaseplease_ and _come on, dude_ and _we never get to see each other in the real world_.

Angus doesn’t know what to say. Gregg is right, obviously – since their chance encounter at the Food Donkey all those months ago, he and Gregg haven’t really run into each other outside of school again. This may be Angus’s fault – he and Bea silently agreed to take a different route home after the night Angus lost his glasses, and a part of him doesn’t want to see Gregg in the “real” world, because Angus’s life outside of these four walls is a shit-show he’s too ashamed to share with anyone but Bea.

“I don’t think so,” he finally sighs, and Gregg’s face falls.

“You don’t wanna skip, huh?” he mumbles, shoving his paws into his pockets, slim shoulders slumping in defeat, “Well, can I, like, walk you home or something then?”

“No,” Angus says, too quickly, too harshly, and when Gregg looks up at him in surprise Angus wants nothing more than to die.

Taking in a steadying breath, Angus continues, a bit more softly, “Sorry. I, uh. I live on the bad side of town.”

“Yeah?” Gregg asks, and this seems to have had an unintended effect, because instead of dropping the subject, Gregg looks even more excited, “You tellin’ me there’s a bad boy under all those sexy argyle layers?”

Gregg’s making fun of him, he knows; it’s happened quite a bit since he came out to him in the bathroom a while back, and while Angus can’t help but feel a little offended, it’s also kind of… fun? Flirty?

…what is _wrong_ with him?

“Gregg,” he says seriously, “My house is a literal shithole. The street I live on is so bad we don’t even get broken into anymore. Even people like _you_ don’t want to be there.”

“Are you calling me a delinquent?” Gregg scoffs playfully, but he looks nervous and it only takes a moment for his whole demeanor to change, “You’re okay, though, right? You’re… you know, safe?”

Angus wants to cry all of a sudden. He hasn’t been safe in years, not for a single day, and it has nothing to do with the fact that he lives in a bad neighborhood.

“I’m fine,” he lies instead, and Gregg has to be okay with that, because Angus is already on his way to the door, hoping he’s still got enough time to make it to his 6th period class, “I’ll see you later, Gregg.”

He leaves before Gregg can say another word.

* * *

The thing with Gregg…  is that he _really_ doesn’t know how to take a hint.

Angus should’ve seen it coming, should’ve expected to be ambushed the moment he and Bea start their long trek home, but somehow it’s still surprising to have a blur of golden limbs and not-quite-authentic leather practically barrel into him just as they leave the school gates.

“HEY, HEY, HEY!”

“What the eff?” he hears Bea grumble off to the side, shifting her backpack from one shoulder to the other in an attempt to _not_ have it knocked clean off.

“Sorry,” Angus apologizes, even though he’s not the one who almost collided into her – not this time, at least – and with a sigh and a tired smile he launches into an introduction, “Bea, this is Gregg. Gregg, Bea.”

“Cool to meet you!” Gregg chirps, clearly excited to finally meet the girl who is _not_ Angus’s girlfriend, and Bea sizes him up with a critical eye before waving him off, “Yeah, charmed or whatever.”

She pauses for a moment, not quite sure what’s going on, but her mind seems to be working on its own conclusions because she looks between Angus and Gregg and then smirks slowly at the larger boy.

“I’ll be leaving you two alone now.”

“Bea,” Angus starts, and he feels the panic welling up in his throat as he wonders if Bea is getting the wrong idea about this, “It’s not like that…”

“Not like what, dude?” Gregg interrupts him brightly, and Angus thanks his lucky stars that Gregg doesn’t seem to be getting what Bea is implying.

“Nothing,” Bea replies, without looking away from Angus’s face, “Yeah, so… See ya tomorrow, Angus.”

“Bea,” Angus pleads again, but she’s already moving past them, leaving Angus alone to his own devices and Gregg’s company.

“She seemed cool,” Gregg cuts in, oblivious as always, and Angus wonders if the other boy is even remotely aware of the implications of hanging out with Possum Springs’s only queer kid.

He sighs. “I thought I told you I didn’t want you to walk me home, Gregg.”

Gregg shrugs. “You said I couldn’t walk you _home._ You didn’t say I couldn’t walk you _halfway._ ”

Well, damn. That was true.

Angus doesn’t bother to argue, instead nodding in the general direction that they’ll be walking, and Gregg falls into step beside him eagerly, all nervous energy and clacking rockabilly boots. They’re quiet for the first half of the trip, and Angus thinks it’s kind of nice, almost like the way he and Bea walk together, except that Gregg moves kind of funny, jittery, and likes to kick cans as far as he can without caring where they land or who they hit.

He also walks really, really close to Angus, which Angus is _not_ used to doing, not with Bea or anyone else.

“Personal space,” he tries, and Gregg looks at him like he’s crazy.

“What the eff does that mean?”

“Nothing,” Angus sighs, and smiles a little, too, because _of course_ electric Gregg with his easy laughter and _let’s be friends_ attitude wouldn’t know the first thing about staying outside of someone’s bubble.

They’re nearing the outskirts of town now, just passing through, and Gregg goes uncharacteristically quiet, which makes Angus’s smile die down a little in concern.

“Gregg?”

“You ever think about…” Gregg trails off, and the electricity that surrounds him fizzles a little, like the letters on a neon sign flickering after too many years of use.

He tries again, “You ever think about leaving Possum Springs?”

Does he think about leaving Possum Springs? Does he _think_ about leaving Possum Springs?

Angus wants to tell him that, _yes, of course_ , he thinks about leaving Possum Springs. He damn well near _fantasizes_ about it.

Instead, eyes watching his own feet move along the pavement, Angus quietly responds, “Every day.”

“How’re you gonna do it?” Gregg asks, and when Angus chances a glance at him, he’s _on_ again, eyes bright in the fading light.

“College,” Angus says simply, shrugging his broad shoulders, “It’s the only way I can think of.”

“Huh,” Gregg replies, like it’s something he’s never really considered before; then, “Mae says that’s how she’s leaving, too. Her mom and dad, they’ve been saving up for years. Since she was, like, six or something.”

“Oh,” Angus replies, and it stings a little to think that right here, in this dinky little town, there are parents willing to do _something_ for the betterment of their kid’s future, “What about you?”

“I’m gonna hop a train,” Gregg replies, like that’s all there is to it, “Someday, me and Casey are gonna catch the first train out of this shithole, and we’re never looking back.”

“Really?” Angus asks, and for the first time since he’s met Gregg, he finds himself acutely aware of the fact that there really _isn’t_ a single person who’s a hundred percent happy here in Possum Springs; in one way or another, they’re all just trying to get out.

“Dude,” Gregg says, and looks at him like it’s the best idea he’s ever come up with, “You should totally come with us. If, like, your college stuff doesn’t work out.”

“I’ll be okay,” Angus replies evasively, then adds with some hesitation, “You really wouldn’t want to be stuck with me.”

“Stuck with you?” Gregg repeats, then nudges Angus in the shoulder, “That’s _exactly_ what I wanna be. You’re the coolest guy I’ve ever met.”

Angus blinks in surprise, heart hammering just a little faster now, and he tentatively asks, “What about Casey?”

Gregg shrugs. “Casey’s my bro,” he says simply, “But, like… you’re smart, you know? You believe in science and all that stuff. I wake up in the morning and I’m all, “ _What’s Angus gonna say today?”_. You’re…”

Angus waits with bated breath and Gregg seems to catch himself because he stops abruptly, trying to sound nonchalant, “Cool. Down to chill.”

“I think you’re cool, too,” Angus confesses, head and heart a swirling mess; what is _happening_ to him?

Gregg snorts. “Yeah, okay.”

His boot shoots out in front of them, kicking a stray piece of garbage a little too forcefully. Then he shrugs and says simply, “I’m just parking lot trash.”

Angus can’t believe what he’s hearing. Gregg is literally the single most exciting thing that’s ever happened to him, and yes, it’s true that Angus has never actually witnessed what he can do with a can of spray paint or his pocketknife, but he _really_ doesn’t think that _any_ number of “crimes” committed would ever make him think differently about Gregg.

Angus wonders how to properly phrase what he’s feeling.

“Do you think we’re all here for a reason?” he finally asks, “Like, do you think that stuff happens because it’s all part of some big plan?”

Gregg shoots him a look, clearly not understanding where this is going.

“Kind of?” he half-replies, half-asks in return, “I mean, I guess?”

“I don’t,” Angus tells him without a moment’s hesitation, and Gregg is still looking at him, but it’s a different kind of look, like Angus is preaching at the pulpit during Sunday service up on the hill and Gregg is looking for God in him, “It’s not, like, scientifically possible. If you can’t prove something, with math or science or real facts, then it can’t be true.”

“Are you an altruist or something?” Gregg asks breathlessly.

“Atheist,” Angus corrects him gently, “Here’s the thing, Gregg. You can say all the awful shit you want to about yourself. But I have data, you know. Conclusive evidence that tells me you’re a good person.”

Gregg sucks in a breath. It’s noisy and uneven and Angus wonders if he’s said something wrong until it’s followed up with a shaky laugh.

“Damn,” is all Gregg says.

They don’t talk for the remainder of the trip, but Angus is okay with that, even with Gregg breaching the inner walls of his personal bubble and walking close enough that their paws brush. Surprisingly, that’s not a bad thing.

They walk together, in perfect sync, and it’s good.

* * *

Angus isn’t in school the next day.

Or the day after that.

Or the day after that.

For three days straight, Angus is drifting, neither here nor there, dizzy out of his mind with hunger and pretty sure he’s suffering a concussion.

When he closes his eyes, he sees the stars, all lined up right there in front of him, and he makes patterns in the dark, a modern-day Galileo.

The tears don’t come as easily when he’s dehydrated, so he doesn’t cry, but he wants to, _so badly_ , and that’s when he thinks of Gregg.

He finds him, Greggory Lee, in the stars behind his eyes, maps out a course to him, plots points and connects the dots together until he’s staring up at him, painfully bright against the infinite blackness of outer space.

He reaches out to him, with limbs that are numb and tired, wanting to feel something, _anything_ – the downiness of his fur, maybe, or the cracked leather of his jacket. He reaches right into the sky and imagines that Gregg meets him halfway, electric eyes and playful smiles and, “ _You’re the coolest guy I’ve ever met”_.

He’s never quite found God, Angus thinks, floating further and further away from himself, but maybe, just maybe, he’s found something better.

* * *

When he goes back to school the next day, Angus finds that he’s actively avoiding Gregg. Maybe it’s because he doesn’t want to explain where he’s been this past week. Maybe it’s because he’s afraid that Gregg might be over him already. Maybe it’s because having an out-of-body experience involving your newest, most fragile friendship kind of changes you, and not necessarily in a good way.

Whatever the reason, Angus knows that if Gregg is looking for him, there’s no way he won’t eventually be found.

As usual, Angus is right.

He’s chatting quietly with Bea on the broken-down steps of the high school entrance when Gregg comes to him, shoulders slumped, paws shoved deep into his pockets, a casual stance if not for the tense set of his jaw, clearly somewhere between annoyed and… hurt? Dejected? Angus can’t tell right away.

“Hey,” Gregg offers when he reaches them; it’s kind of flat-sounding, too unlike Gregg to be coming out of his mouth.

“Hi,” Angus replies lamely, and Bea, in all her infinite wisdom, gives him a compassionate glance before rising and gathering her bag.

“I’ll message you later, Angus,” she promises, then fixes Gregg with an appraising look before informing him simply, “He’s all yours.”

Angus watches her go, suddenly nervous, and it’s Gregg who speaks first, “You wanna get going?”

Angus doesn’t answer. His throat is dry, his head is swirling, and really, he’s not sure he knows quite what to say right now anyway. So instead he shuffles his backpack onto one shoulder – the one that isn’t covered in deep, angry welts – and falls into step beside the boy he hopes might still consider him a friend.

They make it as far as the tracks before Gregg blurts out, seemingly out of nowhere, “What’s with you, man?”

“What?” Angus asks stupidly, because there could literally be a million good responses to that question.

“Where the eff have you been?”

“Oh,” Angus sighs, trying to shrug, but it’s too much effort and hurts too much, so he settles for a shake of his head instead, “Just... got some stuff going on.”

“Yeah,” Gregg says, still sounding annoyed, “Family stuff. I know. Bea told me. But, like…”

Angus glances out of the corner of his eye to find that Gregg is _definitely_ looking hurt now.

“…you told _her_ about it.”

He hears it in the words that Gregg isn’t saying: _Why not me?_

“Gregg,” Angus starts apologetically, but Gregg cuts him off.

“Look, I know I’m not… the best person around to talk to. I get why you like Bea. She’s smart and cool, like you. But I was, you know. Worried, I guess. Where were you? What were you doing? Why didn’t you call me?”

“No reception in Possum Springs,” Angus says quietly, and beside him Gregg breathes out a strained laugh and agrees, “No reception in Possum Springs.”

A moment of silence passes before Angus tries again.

“I’m sorry,” he says, and it sounds super lame in retrospect, but he really does mean it, “It’s this thing that happens sometimes. My parents… they take me out of school for a few days. It’s no big deal.”

“How come?” Gregg asks, curiosity coloring his tone, and he mistakes Angus’s silence for permission to continue, “How come they don’t let you come to school?”

“It’s…”

Angus doesn’t know what to say. He tries not to think about the things that happen at home, because the idea of bringing all of _that_ into the light of day makes him feel sick to his aching stomach.

“It’s just… this thing,” he repeats.

“It’s cool,” Gregg reassures him, though it’s clear that he hasn’t completely dropped the subject, “Adults are weird, huh?”

“Yeah,” Angus agrees quietly, and holy shit, Gregg doesn’t even know the half of it, “Weird.”

“My uncle had sheep,” Gregg says suddenly, and it’s such a jarring non-sequitur that Angus isn’t sure what to say right away, so instead he waits for Gregg to continue, “Down on his farm. Past Briddle, out by the interstate.”

Angus nods mutely, somehow intrinsically aware that whatever Gregg is about to tell him is important.

“One summer, my parents shipped me off to spend, like, a month with him. Guess I was being too much of a pain in the ass here at home or something.”

Gregg shuffles his feet a little, a faint, self-deprecating chuckle escaping his lips.

“One afternoon, right around dinner-time, I did a really, really stupid thing, Angus.”

Angus finds himself meeting Gregg’s eyes, and he can already tell that this story isn’t going to have a happy ending.

“I opened the gate. And, you know, because sheep are nature’s dumbasses, a bunch of them bolted right out of the pen. I chased after them as fast as I could, Angus. Across the field and into the woods and down the steepest possible effing hill, right down to the interstate.”

“Gregg, you don’t have to –“

But apparently Gregg _does_ have to.

“Four of them were gone before I could blink. Splattered by a semi-truck. I’ve never seen so much blood in my whole life. A few of them climbed back up the hill, but three of them… three of them made it over the median and across to the other side. So I…”

 _Please don’t do this, Gregg_ , Angus wants to beg, because Gregg’s voice is starting to crack a little, and Angus doesn’t understand, _can’t_ understand why Gregg is sharing something so personal and so important with _him_ , of all people.

“I’m such an idiot, Angus. I tried to get them to come back. I stared at them and they stared at me and I waved my effing hands all over the place, screaming for them to come back. And two of them did.”

Angus feels sick, so impossibly sick, because he knows what’s coming.

“Got splattered by another truck.”

 _I’m sorry,_ Angus wants to say, but there’s a funny light in Gregg’s eyes as he continues, “That last sheep, though. He did something none of those other dumbass sheep even thought to do. He ran down the other side of the hill, into the woods, and _disappeared_ , Angus. No one ever saw him again.”

Gregg doesn’t say anything else, and Angus finds himself letting out the breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding, heart hammering in his chest.

“Gregg…”

“Look,” Gregg cuts him off, dragging the back of his paw across his face, “What I’m trying to say, Angus, is… We’ve all got our own shit to deal with. Weird shit, awful shit, really, _really_ messed up shit. And I guess, if we’re gonna be friends, the way I want us to be…”

Angus swallows his heart down.

“…then I want to know. I want to know what you’re going through. I want to know the weird and the awful and the messed-up. Bea’s a good friend. She didn’t tell me an effing thing. Just ‘family stuff’. But if there’s something going on, and if you’re gonna be away from me for three whole days…”

 _I didn’t want to be_ , Angus thinks, and his eyes grow wet behind the safety of his dull lenses, treacherous feeling getting the best of him.

“…then tell me, okay?”

Angus wants nothing more than to tell Gregg. He wants to tell him _everything_ , all the ugly, shameful things he’s been through, how he doesn’t eat and doesn’t sleep and dreams in hallucinations, how it’s the thought of Gregg and Gregg alone that gets him from one long, impossibly lonely day to the next.

But he can’t.

Gregg shared something so deeply personal with him, and Angus is so, _so_  frustrated with himself, because he can’t seem to gather up enough courage or decency to do the same.

“Okay,” he tells the smaller boy, and even though Gregg smiles at him, he can’t help but feel like the universe’s worst friend because, in some small way or another, they both know that he’s lying.

* * *

There are things that Angus has come to expect when he trudges tiredly through the front door of his family home.

His mother screaming at him for being late, even when he knows he’s early, is one of those things.

His father waiting for him in the hallway that leads to his bedroom, belt pulled taut between two giant paws, ready to unload his frustrations on whatever part of Angus he can reach, is another.

Less commonly, there are things that Angus has _not_ come to expect when he trudges tiredly through the front door of his family home.

His father waiting for him in the living room instead, ambushing him before his mother even has a chance to tell him how worthless he is today, is one of those things.

Seeing Gregg’s horrified face in the front window, mere seconds before his father sends him flying with a belt-slap to the head, is another.

* * *

 _Damage control_ , Angus thinks to himself as he unlocks the front door with shaking paws, slippery and dark from blood he’d tried so hard not to get on his mother’s favorite carpet.

 _Damage control_ , he repeats to himself, finally managing to get the stupid door open, and the rush of cold air that hits him is actually kind of nice – it numbs him immediately, throbbing head to tired feet, envelopes him in its icy embrace and gives him a moment to just _breathe._

It’s only a moment, though, because Angus has a _job._

“ _Tell him it weren’t nothing serious,”_ his father had hissed right into his face, gripping Angus’s arm in a steely vice that made pins and needles dance through his quivering paw, _“Tell him it was just discipline.”_

Of course his father had noticed Gregg in the window, moments after Angus had, and _of course_ his father was acutely aware that even though Angus had never told anyone about this, _swore_ on his life never to tell anyone about this, the boy standing right outside their house very well might.

It wasn’t Angus’s bleeding temple that his father was worried about. It wasn’t any one of the welts and bruises that flared and stung whenever Angus got dressed in the morning, gingerly, so, _so_ gingerly, nor was it the bone between his wrist and elbow that had only really just begun to mend itself. It wasn’t the psychological well-being of his hungry, battered son that Angus’s father was worried about.

It was his _reputation_. It was the idea of _getting caught._

Angus wants to die.

As if his life wasn’t enough of a horror-show, he now has the responsibility of explaining things to Gregg, in a way that _won’t_ incriminate the man who’d just about given him a concussion, all while trying _not_ to pass out.

Thankfully he doesn’t have far to go to find Gregg, because as usual, it’s Gregg who finds him.

“Oh my God, Angus.”

Gregg rushes at him, sprinting across the street towards him like a lunatic, narrowly avoiding being hit by an oncoming vehicle – the sheep story flashes momentarily through Angus’s mind, filling him with a panic so fleeting and so terrifying that Angus is sure he’s going to vomit – and then Gregg is hugging him, right in the middle of the sidewalk, right outside of Angus’s childhood home, arms tight around his midsection, and – shit – is he _crying_?

“Gregg…”

“Angus, what… what the _eff_ happened?”

“Sorry,” Angus apologizes, and Gregg sobs into his sweater-vest, “Gregg, I’m sorry, I’m… I’m getting blood all over you.”

“Shit,” Gregg sniffs, pulling his face quickly away from the crook of Angus’s neck, a bright red smear painted across the tip of one of his soft, golden ears, “Angus, dude, you’re hurt.”

“It’s okay,” Angus tries to comfort him, but suddenly everything is too much and he feels himself grow dizzy, dangerously light-headed, half-stumbling forward into Gregg, who catches him with a soft, panicked sound.

“Angus, holy shit.”

Gregg’s voice is high and terrified, and Angus hates himself so much for worrying his friend, feels like the world’s biggest, stupidest failure.

“It’s okay, Gregg,” he repeats, but it comes out a little too breathless to be properly reassuring, “I just… I need to sit down for a sec. That’s all.”

“We’re leaving,” Gregg announces firmly, and though he’s still visibly jittery with adrenaline and panic, Angus can tell that he’s dead serious.

“Where?” Angus asks, his voice slurring enough that Gregg tightens an arm around his mid-section, trying to keep him upright as they trudge slowly down the sidewalk together.

“Somewhere else,” Gregg replies in a rush, throwing a cautious look over his shoulder, as though he expects for Angus’s father to come barreling out into the street after them any minute now, “Somewhere safe.”

Angus doesn’t know what “safe” means, but he figures that putting his trust in Gregg couldn’t possibly land him in a worse situation than the one he’s in now.

They end up in Mae Borowski’s bedroom.

* * *

It’s a long slog from Angus’s side of town to Mae’s, and of course Angus is slowing them both down with his tired, heavy footsteps and uncoordinated movements. To his credit, though, Gregg is surprisingly strong when he’s hopped up on adrenaline, so he’s there to catch Angus when he starts to slip, steadying him with an arm around his middle and a hand on his back.

They trudge past the Food Donkey, through the parking lot where they first met, weaving around unfamiliar neighbors as they work their way out of Towne Centre. Hunger rages with a life of its own inside of Angus’s empty stomach the moment they catch a whiff of Pastabillities’ evening special from nearly a block away.

They’re getting closer to Maple Street now, Gregg tells him, but Angus’s head is still swimming so he spends the next several minutes trying to ground himself. He searches for things to focus on – the bright, impossibly colorful balloons filling the display window of the Party Barn, the misaligned movie posters hung up along the outside wall of the Video Outpost store – Angus can barely make out the titles in the fading light –, Mr. Santello, whom he’s only met a handful of times, humming an old, familiar tune outside of the Pickaxe as he locks up for the night, paying the boys absolutely no mind.

The walk becomes steeper now as the ground plummets in elevation, but Gregg reassures him that they’re practically there, so Angus closes his eyes, lets the smaller boy guide him by touch alone, and by the time he’s managed to get his bearings about himself, they’re standing in front of a quaint little house on the good side of town, lit up in the soft glow of a porch light that, unlike Angus’s back at home, still seems to work.

 _11 Maple Street_ , Angus thinks dizzily to himself, and then Gregg is pounding on the front door like he’s not afraid at all of alerting the neighbors or annoying whoever might be inside the house.

“Geez!”

It’s a girl’s voice that he hears a moment later, from the other side of the closed door, and when it finally swings open Mae Borowski is standing at the threshold, looking smaller yet simultaneously fiercer than Angus remembers her being all those years ago on that bloody softball field.

“Dude, if my parents had been here, they totally would’ve gone medieval on your ass–”

She stops, brain clearly trying to register what she’s looking at. Angus can’t help but feel a wave of shame crash over him – he’s heard so much about Mae and how smart and fearless and amazing she is from Gregg, yet here he is, completely botching their first formal introduction by bleeding and leaning on her best friend like some sort of invalid, barely able to form a coherent, “Hi.”

“Shit,” she says simply; “Shit”, Gregg agrees, and the two of them scramble to get Angus through the doorway, explanations be damned.

They walk him up a long flight of stairs leading to the second level of the house, pause on the landing to let him catch his breath, then continue further up into what Angus assumes must be the attic. It’s a bit cramped as the three of them move through the narrow doorway at once, but at least they seem to have reached their destination, which comes as a relief to Angus – at this point he’s not sure if he’s even physically capable of taking another step.

“Sit,” Mae tells him, and it’s a little awkward since he’s never been in a girl’s room before, but she doesn’t seem to care so he lowers himself gingerly onto the edge of what appears to be some kind of futon or sofa bed – Angus thinks vaguely that he’s never really stopped to consider what the difference even is.

“Ice,” Gregg pipes up from beside him; “Ice,” Mae agrees, and then she’s off again, clambering down the stairs in a way that’s surprisingly noisy for such a small feline. Angus slumps back against the frame of the futon? sofa bed? and closes his eyes once she’s gone, feeling the tension drain from his tightly-wound shoulders for the first time since this infernal evening began.

It’s nice up here, in the furthest reaches of Mae Borowski’s house, warm and cozy, and Angus wonders what it must be like to spend every night in a place like this, sleeping in a real (well, _almost_ real) bed instead of the floor of a locked room, listening to the soothing, faraway hum of cars passing by on the street outside.

“Hey,” Gregg says softly, and Angus opens his eyes slowly to find that the other boy is sitting next to him, one leg dangling over with the other tucked in beneath himself, staring intently into Angus’s face and looking equal parts worried and exhausted, “You okay?”

“Yeah,” Angus breathes in a voice that still shakes too much for his own liking; then it hits him like a ton of bricks, and before he can stop himself, he’s asking Gregg point-blank, “Why were you there?”

“Geez,” Gregg sighs, scratching absently at the back of his head. Angus can tell that he’s feeling guilty, so he doesn’t want to push the matter, but Gregg tells him anyway, “I know you said you didn’t want me, like, walking you home or anything. But, uh… I’ve kind of been following you back this week.”

He pauses, looking for all intents and purposes like he absolutely hates himself, “It’s super lame, right? I’m like some creepy friend-stalker. I just… wanted to make sure you were safe.”

The irony of that statement makes Angus want to laugh, but he doesn’t. Gregg’s heart was in the right place tonight, after all, and neither of them could’ve predicted the ensuing craziness.

“What _happened_ , Angus?” Gregg asks, when Angus is quiet for longer than he can stand, “Why did…?”

“The thing,” Angus says, and it’s freeing in a way, to finally bring it out into the open, even though his paws are shaking again and his eyes feel wet behind his glasses, “That’s the thing.”

“The thing,” Gregg repeats in disbelief, like he _knows_ what Angus means but stubbornly doesn’t want to put two and two together.

Angus sighs. There’s absolutely no fight left in him now.

“When I’m not at school, Gregg.”

“Are you kidding me?” Gregg snaps, and it’s a harsh, biting statement, though Angus isn’t sure if Gregg is mad at him or at the situation in general, “ _That’s_ why you were gone for three days?”

“It’s not just my dad,” Angus admits, watching as Gregg’s ears flatten back against his head in recoil; he’s scared, and Angus can’t blame him. This is _really_ hard to talk about, but it must be just as hard to hear, “It’s… my mom, too.”

“She hits you?” Gregg asks, looking absolutely sick to his stomach.

“No,” Angus replies truthfully, though the truth really is always worse than anything you can imagine, “She…”

“Angus,” Gregg starts, leaning forward onto his shaking knees, trying to get closer, but Angus puts out a defensive paw to stop him; the pads of his palm meet Gregg’s jacket, worn, cracked leather skimming his fingertips, and for a moment they just stare at each other.

“I haven’t eaten in days,” Angus admits miserably, and if he didn’t already notice it, Gregg _really_ looks like he wants to cry now.

“She, like… _starves_ you?”

“I guess I must’ve done something? A long time ago? She’s always liked my brother better. After he left to, you know, go overseas… I guess that’s when it started.”

If he weren’t so exhausted and utterly _done_ with everything, Angus might find it fascinating how quickly Gregg’s expression seems to change from one second to the next. Right now, he looks _pissed._

“Can I kill them?” he asks, like it’s no big deal, like he hadn’t just asked for permission to murder his friend’s parents, “Is that a thing? Like, if someone’s hurting you that way?”

“I don’t know,” Angus sighs, and he really doesn’t. The thought of fighting back has never occurred to him, not when he was younger and more impressionable, and certainly not now that he’s older and so used to the routine of being treated like he’s a mistake his parents are trying their damndest to erase.

“Is that…?”

“Everything?” Angus fills in for him, and he feels like the absolute worst friend on the planet, piling his problems onto Gregg one by one, “No.”

“Shit.”

“Almost every day, I’m surrounded by food. But I can’t eat any of it.”

“How…?”

“The pantry,” Angus says, like that should clear everything up somehow; then, when Gregg doesn’t seem to get it, “The door locks from the outside.”

“She _locks you up_?”

“Not all the time,” Angus corrects him, a pathetic defense, really, “But a lot of the time.”

Gregg’s having another mood shift, Angus notices, but it’s a little different from the fear and anger of just a few minutes ago. If Angus had to pinpoint it, he might just go with _sad_.

“You spent three days…”

“Three days in the locked pantry,” Angus confirms, and Gregg is a complete mess. He gets up, shoves his paws as deep as they’ll go into his pockets, paces like movement is the only thing keeping him anchored and if he stops he’ll absolutely lose it.

Angus has to tell him. Now. It’ll sound pathetic, maybe even crazy, but if he doesn’t tell Gregg what happened in the pantry the last time he was there, he thinks maybe he’ll lose it, too.

He wonders what to say, _how_ to say it. How do you tell someone that they were the only thing on your mind during one of your lowest moments?

Angus doesn’t know, but he tries anyway.

“Sometimes, when I’m in there,” he begins tentatively, and Gregg’s attention is on him even though he hasn’t stopped his nervous, jittery journey from one end of the room to the other, “I sort of start seeing things. Like, I have this book on constellations from when I was little. If I close my eyes long enough, I start to see them. The stars. Right there in the pantry.”

Crazy doesn’t even begin to cover how he feels, but Angus pushes ahead anyway.

“It helps to pass the time,” he continues with a shrug, feeling the overwhelming need to defend himself even though Gregg is still silently listening, no traces of judgment in his expression, “And… it keeps me sane.”

He swallows, waits to see if Gregg has anything to interject; when he doesn’t, Angus lowers his eyes, picking nervously at an invisible fray in the knee of his slacks.

“This is gonna sound… _weird_ , I guess,” he admits slowly, “But the last time I was there, I kinda, like… found you. In the pantry.”

Gregg stops then, manic pacing slowing to a confused halt, and Angus’s paws feel clammy, face hot with embarrassment.

“Or maybe,” he says, almost under his breath, “Maybe _you_ found _me_.”

“Angus…?”

Angus steels himself for what could be the worst rejection of his life; if he says the wrong thing and scares Gregg off, he knows he won’t ever be able to forgive himself.

“You were a constellation in my sky,” he sighs hopelessly, “The brightest I’ve ever seen.”

Gregg sucks in a breath from somewhere across the room, and Angus can’t bear to look up because what if he’s making absolutely no sense and Gregg thinks he’s some creepy mental case?

So he stops talking, waiting for something to happen – for Mae to walk back in, for the pounding in his head to finally knock him out cold, _anything_ to stop the quiet, torturous tick of the seconds passing between them.

What he doesn’t expect is for Gregg to come back around to the futon, kneeling nervously in front of him, paws hesitating before coming to rest gingerly on Angus’s forearms; it’s almost like he’s afraid that if he holds on too tightly, Angus might evaporate right into thin air.

“Hey,” Gregg breathes softly, past the inner ring of Angus’s personal bubble, so close that Angus can’t help but look up at him nervously from behind his glasses. What Gregg asks next is beyond Angus’s comprehension, beyond anything he could have ever imagined even in a universe literally full of infinite possibilities: “Would it be cool if I kissed you?”

* * *

Autumn is weird.

It lives somewhere between the lingering heat of summer and the foreboding chill of winter, crisp mornings bleeding into unseasonably warm days, spiraling into cool, dark evenings as the daylight hours grow shorter and shorter.

It dies, too, in the baring of the trees – halfway through the season the ground is a vibrant graveyard of reds and yellows and purples and browns, leaves scattering into the unknown, carried along at the mercy of an uncaring wind.

Tonight, Angus feels a lot like autumn – a little bit dead, because he knows that, after this moment, life will never be the same again, and he will never be the Angus that he was before, but _so much more_ alive, because when Gregg kisses him, when their lips meet and they share a shaky breath, Angus swears that he can feel a surge of _something_ , something scary and electric and _beautiful_ , travel through him. It lights him up inside, like fireflies, like _stars_ , and in the dimness of Mae Borowski’s attic bedroom, they’re a goddamn constellation.

* * *

Angus’s life is moving at warp-speed now; so much has happened in absolutely no time at all, and it’s becoming increasingly difficult to process just how much things have changed. These are the things that Angus knows for sure:

_His father is gone._

When he comes back home, after two days spent healing and hiding out in the Borowski household, Angus finds that the driveway is empty and his mother is crying near the window in the front room. He doesn’t ask her what’s wrong; instead, he pads quietly through the house, past his own room, peering into the half-open doorway at the end of the hall, and somehow he just _knows_.

His mother never hurts him again.

_He has a boyfriend now._

It’s a little awkward to navigate at first, because he honestly didn’t have the faintest inkling that Gregg was gay let alone interested in him, but somehow it all works out and Angus finds that he’s been dropped right into the middle of his first real relationship. All of a sudden he’s Gregg’s Cap’n, Gregg is his Bug, and their friends have come to the consensus that, while they might just be the cutest couple in all of Possum Springs, they’re also kind of nauseating to watch. Angus doesn’t mind.

On their 6-month anniversary, Mae waggles her eyebrows at him all day long and slyly tells him that Gregg has a _special_ evening planned for him. Bea, who lends Angus her car to pick Gregg up in, lectures him on the importance of ‘being safe’ and warns him not to be surprised if their first time is terrible.

It isn’t.

_He’s gained a family._

They’re a little rough around the edges, and the word ‘crime’ is thrown around an awful lot when they’re together, but Angus has never met a more tightly-knit group of misfits than Gregg, Mae, and Casey. They’re cut from the same cloth, rebels with and without a cause, so it comes as a surprise to Angus when the four of them are staring up at the stars from the Food Donkey parking lot and Mae proclaims out of nowhere that they’re adopting him as an honorary member of the group.

Some months later, when they’re messing around with band equipment in Casey’s basement and Mae starts griping about their lack of a vocalist, Angus finds the courage to quietly inform everyone that he has a little singing experience from middle school choir.

Gregg hooks the mic up for him and moves to eagerly watch his ‘audition’ from the sidelines, so Angus closes his eyes, opens his mouth, and promptly blows them all away.

“Holy shit,” Mae breathes, staring at him bug-eyed; “Holy shit,” Gregg agrees, grinning and red-faced.

“Dude,” Casey tells him seriously, clapping Angus on the back with barely-contained admiration, “Welcome to the effing family.”

* * *

There are, of course, things that Angus is _not_ so sure of.

For a little while, the future seems to be one of those things.

A year and a half later, though, when the last of winter’s chill starts to fade and the flowers begin to bloom slowly in Possum Springs, Angus figures it out.

* * *

He’s sitting on the railing of the old bridge leading to the highway today, taking in the sight of rolling fields and forested woods stretching out for miles and miles in all directions, patiently waiting. There’s an envelope tucked neatly at his side, manila, and by its heft he can already tell that it’s been stuffed to the brim with all matter of wonderfully mundane things – a congratulatory letter lined in gold trim, he thinks, campus maps outlining his future home, maybe even information on dormitory assignments and meal plans.

Angus knows that his entire life has been leading up to this moment – today is the culmination of years and years of applying himself, of studying in the dark on the nights he was allowed to sleep in his own room, of taking and retaking tests until the scores were satisfactory, of paying close attention during class and keeping meticulous notes even when everyone around him seemed more intent to just goof off. He’s worked _hard_ for this.

So why hasn’t he opened the damn envelope yet?

“Hey, Cap’n.”

Angus lets out the breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding, smiling almost in spite of himself; the fact that Gregg still makes him so stupidly _giddy_ , just with a simple, affectionate greeting, never ceases to amaze him.

“Hey, Bug.”

Gregg makes a happy little noise in the back of his throat, kind of a purr, and plops down right next to where Angus is sitting. He’s good at finding invisible points of connection, pressing his shoulder to Angus’s while reaching out a soft, downy paw to hold his hand, legs brushing as their limbs dangle over the edge of the railing, and Angus thinks that personal space is really, _really_ overrated.

They sit in silence for a little while, watching the sun’s fading orange rays sweep across the landscape; then, nervous energy apparent in his tone, Gregg slowly asks, “Everything okay?”

Angus blinks, feeling a little guilty at the apprehensive look on Gregg’s face, and wonders how he’s going to say this. He opts for action instead, reaching off to the side with one paw and carefully withdrawing the unopened envelope from where it's been hiding all this time.

Gregg takes one look at the return address label and looks like he’s about to cry.

“Oh,” he manages to say with some composure, “Wow, Cap’n. You… you did it, huh?”

He moves his paw from Angus’s and scrubs it roughly across his eyes; Angus politely pretends not to notice.

“It came in the mail today,” he tells him instead, and Gregg looks like he’s trying _so hard_ to keep it together.

“Geez, I’m so effing proud of you,” he sniffs, and really, Angus believes him – no one has ever been in his corner as stubbornly and as sincerely as his boyfriend. Gregg truly seems to think that Angus is better and smarter and more worthwhile than he actually is, and sometimes Angus feels like he doesn’t deserve all of this, doesn’t deserve _him_ , but Gregg won’t hear a word of it so Angus has learned to keep those thoughts to himself.

“Couldn’t have done it without you, Bug,” he says, and when Gregg smiles at him, beautiful and brilliant and _perfect_ , Angus feels his heart clench.

“So,” Gregg clears his throat, trying to sound more composed than he looks, “When are you leaving?”

 _This is it_ , Angus thinks to himself, _This is the beginning of the rest of your life._

“I’m not,” he says simply, and if he hadn’t reached an arm out to steady Gregg on the railing right at that moment, he might’ve ended up witnessing an unintended suicide.

“ _What?!_ ”

“I’m not going,” Angus clarifies, when Gregg is no longer in immediate danger of falling, “I’ve decided I’m staying here, in Possum Springs.”

“Angus, what the hell?” Gregg gapes at him, actually looks legitimately _angry_ at him, and Angus feels a nervous sweat start to creep down his back.

“Bug,” he starts carefully, but Gregg cuts him off.

“Don’t you ‘Bug’ me,” he snaps at him, “Angus, this was your _dream_! You’ve worked your gorgeous, perfectly-shaped ass off for _years_ , all for this stupid envelope!”

“Perfectly-shaped…?” Angus repeats, more than a little surprised, to which Gregg huffs, “Yes, it’s fantastic, okay?”

“Gregg…”

“No,” Gregg interrupts him again, “You’re not allowed to stay here, dude. You’re not throwing your life away in shitty, backwards-ass Possum Springs. I won’t let you.”

“It’s not your choice,” Angus reminds him gently, and Gregg looks so damn confused, like he doesn’t understand why Angus would even consider giving up this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to pack his bags and never look back.

“I don’t get it,” he finally admits, and Angus smiles at him, because how could Gregg not understand why this is such an easy decision for Angus to make?

“You’re right,” he replies after a moment, “I _should_ be on my way home right now to pack up all my shit. I _should_ be getting the hell out of here now that I finally have the chance. This _was_ my dream.”

“So then why…?”

“I want a new dream,” Angus tells him simply, and Gregg’s eyes are starting to look a little misty now, “One that can be ours.”

“Geez, Cap’n,” Gregg sniffs, and a moment later he’s kissing him, scrambling half into Angus’s lap with no regard for safety, “You’re so stupid… so effing stupid…”

“I love you,” Angus manages when he can breathe again, and nothing could be more true – Gregg is everything, everything he never knew he wanted or needed, all the things that make his life worth living, a constant light in the dark. A future without Gregg by his side is impossible to imagine, because what would be the point?

“This is crazy,” Gregg tells him, still peppering Angus’s face with kisses, “What are we even supposed to do…?”

“Move in with me,” Angus says, and Gregg stops his shower of affection and looks at him like he actually _is_ crazy.

“Dude, your mom…”

“Not like _that_ ,” Angus laughs, and Gregg looks a little embarrassed, “I mean… let’s get our own place. There’re apartments down in Underhill, right? Towne Centre, too? Maybe… maybe we could start off there.”

“We’d need jobs,” Gregg points out.

Angus shrugs. “I could pick up more shifts at the Video Outpost,” he reasons, and Gregg looks embarrassed again and mutters under his breath, “Okay, well, like, _I’d_ need a job.”

“We can do this, right?” Angus asks, feeling almost light-headed with the realization that he can finally, finally take the reigns of his own life for once, “It’s, like, doable?”

“Totally doable,” Gregg responds; then, a little less confidently, “But, man… Possum Springs forever, huh?”

“Not forever,” Angus tells him seriously. Their eyes meet, and they both know without having to say it: they can’t stay here, not for the long haul. Possum Springs is a quiet, unassuming death sentence.

“So it’s a plan,” Gregg confirms, trying hard to fight back a giddy smile, “We stay here a while, couple years, maybe. Get an apartment, work our asses off, and then… then we’ll go somewhere else. Just us.”

“Yeah,” Angus repeats softly, “Just us.”

* * *

Mae Borowski is gone.

He and Gregg and Casey stop by her house in mid-summer, help her parents load up the family car with all of her things, and take turns saying their goodbyes. Casey lifts her up and twirls her around and tells her that she’ll always be his favorite, even if she is leaving him in this shitty-ass, good-ass town all by his lonesome. Gregg sniffs and tries hard not to cry, sharing one last secret handshake with his best and oldest friend, and Mae punches him in the arm and tells him to pull it together, all the while looking like she’s about to lose it, too. When it’s his turn, Angus doesn’t know what to say, so he says ‘thank you’, because Mae Borowski has done more for him these past few seasons than his own flesh and blood ever have. She’s been a friend, a band-mate, a much-needed breath of fresh air in a life spent stagnating for far too long; as far as Angus is concerned, she’s family.

Mae pats his shoulder affectionately, adjusts his fedora, and tells him that he’s good, that he and Gregg are both good. Then she warns him that he’d better not hurt Gregg or else she’ll personally pound him into the ground, and, when they’ve cleared that up, jokingly makes him promise that she’ll be the first person to receive a wedding invitation whenever they decide to get hitched.

They watch Mae and her parents pile into the car, waving to them from where they’re standing in the middle of the empty street, and they continue watching until the Borowskis are a blip in the distance, disappearing over the bridge and into the woods.

Gregg leans heavily against him, one arm tight around Angus’s midsection, and it takes them a while to say anything at all.

“Welp,” Casey finally sighs, and when Angus and Gregg look up at him, he’s kind-of smiling, kind-of not, “Possum Springs will never be the same again, huh?”

“Nope,” Gregg agrees, staring off into the space that Mae once occupied.

“She’s gonna be fine,” Casey continues, and Angus wonders whose benefit he’s saying that for, “Gonna be just fine.”

He turns in place, paws shoved into the pockets of his black hooded sweatshirt, and Gregg asks, “Where you going, dude?”

“Dunno,” Casey admits, tossing a smile at them over his shoulder, “Anywhere. Just not here.”

They watch him disappear down the street, in the opposite direction of Mae’s own departure, and Gregg lets out a laugh that sounds a little too sad to be coming from him.

“You know, Cap’n,” he says after a moment, voice wistful, “I wouldn’t be surprised if he hopped a train tonight and we just, like… never saw him again.”

“You told me that once,” Angus replies, gently steering Gregg towards the safety of the sidewalk, “That you guys were gonna catch the first train out of this shithole.”

“Change of plans,” Gregg shrugs, and then, in the fading afternoon light, he turns swiftly on his heel, launching himself into Angus’s arms and kissing him full on the mouth right in front of Mae Borowski’s house.

“I love you,” he murmurs when they part for air. Angus studies his face for a moment, thinks that it’s funny how quickly life changes, and wonders what exactly the future has in store for them. Then he realizes that it doesn’t really matter, not right now, because as long as they’ve got a dream and they’ve got each other, they’re gonna be just fine.

“Me too, Bug.”

 

**END.**


End file.
